


Root Rights

by Niyuu



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, F/M, Het and Slash, M/M, May get more Pairings, Tags May Change, Yaoi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-05-31 12:58:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6470842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niyuu/pseuds/Niyuu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the future every citizen will be happy and cared for by the ever so watchful government. </p><p>Except Yuugi isn't really a citizen. And his grandfather is a wanted terrorist. And his friends live in the slums. And no one is happy with it.</p><p>Dystopia-AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Search and Destroy

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know where this came from. 
> 
> Please point out any language mistakes as english isn't my native language :) But you can go ahead and just ignore my physics and PC knowledge, because I seriously don't have any and bend any laws to my will anyways xD 
> 
> Made-up devices will be explained through the story, so no extras here :)

Yuugi felt like shit. 

After turning for hours he finally decided to get up. No need to waste his time like that. A short look over to his watch, it was 1:34 PM, and he rolled over with a groan. Last night morphed into this morning when he finally felt tired enough to go to bed. But sleep wouldn’t come, only nightmares.

He shivered as his naked feet stumbled upon the cold floor of the little flat. October was well on its way and the heater had a mind of its own. He cursed as he stepped into the even colder bathroom, flicked on the lights and took his well-deserved piss. A look into the mirror and he instantly wished he hadn’t looked. He didn’t just feel like shit, his face was blatantly telling everyone who asked and who didn’t about his sleeplessness. He shook the last drops away and stepped out of the tiny room, shutting light and door.

Back in the main room he grabbed for something to wear, short snivel-test, okay, this shirt would do. His stomach growled after being awake for so long and not eating anything, but Yuugi ignored it. Instead he sat down at the tiny desk and immediately checked his running laptop for the news. 

Nothing of importance. Still he looked.

The same things were reported over and over again, just numbers and places changed. Here a terrorist attack with so and so many wounded, there a heroically fought down rebellion, the newest fad in music and fashion, all hail the emperor, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Yuugi was searching for hints. A few weeks ago his grandfather suddenly left and since then he hadn’t heard anything from him, much less seeing him. Then the troops came crashing down on his apartment and he escaped by only a hairs width. 

Not that he wished to see blatant news about his grandfather, that would be bad indeed. Were he to see him on TV, he would only see his execution. By now it was rather obvious he had been discovered and had to go into hiding, or worse, he had been caught.

Yuugi sighed, as he did often these last few weeks. Then he snapped his laptop shut, put it into his bag and, after another irritated growl from his stomach, added an energy drink and whatever food lay closest to the fridge-door. Not that he cared.

He put on his shoes, checked the good old door spy and his good new surveillance camera app and only then left his apartment. Double-locking the doors he continued to check his surroundings and finally made his way down the six stories.

He arrived at his college only a few minutes too early for his afternoon lecture so he made his way directly to the auditorium. Standing distantly from the growing crowd he pulled out his sandwich and smartphone and, biting the bread, checked the news again. As the students went into the room he followed absent-mindedly, food forgotten in his hand, eyes still glued on the screen. 

There had been a terrorist attack. In the neighboring town.

Yuugi guessed that no lecture could have ever felt as long to any student as advanced calculus felt to him right now. Even though his search algorithm was the same on both his devices he still set up his laptop and started to investigate. There wasn’t much on the incident yet, but it was so much more than before. The perpetrators were still unknown (good!), there had been no deadly casualty (very good!) and the terrorist aim had been an abandoned hotel. But why would a terrorist destroy such a useless target? They wouldn’t. They would however blow up the building to create an escape route.

But Yuugi couldn’t skip his class. His performance was measured by the system, just like everyone’s in this room, in this college, in this town, in this state. Were his attendance to drop, his score would drop and the executives would take notice of him. Nothing an illegal citizen would want.

So he endured and raped his F5 button.

The lecture finally ended and Yuugi was out of the room even before the professor had finished talking. His bag was strapped tightly to his back, he almost ran out of the building. As much as he wanted to directly go over to the bombed hotel, it was after all in the next town. He didn’t own a car or a bike for that matter, and it would be impossible for him to reach it on foot before curfew. He scratched his head viciously. Why wouldn’t his brain come up with a solution?

He had ideas of course, one more stupid then the other. He could steal a car (and who would drive it?), he could hitch a ride (but who would take him?), he could pass through the slums in the swamp to shorten his way (and probably his life expectancy). He shook his head. No, he had to endure some more. If it really was his grandpa he would see the signs around the old house and not come close to it, instead skipping right to the safe house. It wasn’t as if he could go around and risk his score for the mere chance that it was his grandpa. 

His step slowed, and he returned home in a normal pace. He heard the drones above him, informing him not to panic, there had been an attack but everything was under control already. 

On his way he went grocery shopping and on a moments spur he picked an extra bag of sweets. Even if he couldn’t traverse to the other town, it probably wouldn’t do any harm to go and talk to the slumkids that hung out behind the fence. It didn’t matter that it meant he had to walk almost twice his way home just to get to the town’s border.

As he came closer he noticed that not one single kid was standing there 1in the dim evening light. He groaned loudly. His brain obviously decided to go on vacation today. Which right-minded kid would wait for scraps of generous passer-bys if it could run up to the other town and look for action? Of course no one was here. Yuugi’s shoulders fell in disappointment and he turned around to go home and wait some more.

Just as he was facing the fence he saw the angry red of the drone’s nightvision cameras floating above the swamp, all the way down in the valley. He stopped dead in his tracks and hoped dearly they weren’t going to raid the slum. More drones were coming from beyond the valley. He stopped breathing. But the drones passed the slums by. 

It was then that Yuugi noticed a person stumble along the untamed high grass. But the drones did too and they started the chase, obviously having found who they were searching for. Yuugi’s thoughts raced. This was the terrorist. And he was in danger. His hands gripped the barbed wire of the fence, his eyes raced left and right, up and down, he was desperately searching for a way through to help that person.

Then the fire started.

The drones didn’t bother with single shots, they were doing what they were programmed for: extermination. Smoke arose from the spot a person had been standing in a second before, the fire stopped. Yuugi gasped in horror, feeling bile come up to his throat. His now bloody hands still held on to the fence like it was his lifeline.

Never would he have expected a green light down in the swamp. It grew stronger and flashed once. And the drones fell down. All lights went out. Everything went silent. The person tried to get up, stumbled, and almost fell down again. 

His eyes went wide. That terrorist had just triggered an electromagnetic pulse, effectively destroying every technical device in its range. And he was alive. Stumbling, falling over and staying down. Not good.

Yuugi’s brain was working again. While everything was shut down he had the chance to dig a hole underneath the fence, without any surveillance. He worked like it was his life that was in danger here and squeezed through the hole as soon as possible, thanking the gods for once that he was so small. Dragging his backpack with him to the other side he practically ran down the hill towards the burned patch.

He heard a croaking voice right behind him and turned sharply, already beyond the man. He hurried over, saw spiky hair, saw a small body, saw his-

“Grandfather!”

“Sugoroku.”

But it wasn’t his grandfather. It was a young man, barely older than himself by the looks of it. And by the looks of it he was bleeding to death right now.


	2. Dead or Alive

Yuugi came crashing down on his knees, throwing his backpack alongside to the ground. He fought with the zipper for what felt like an eternity, and half ripped it open, fumbling for his first aid kit. With trembling hands he put on the packed gloves and moved over closer to the man, eyeing but not yet touching the bleeding abdomen wound closely. He grimaced in disgust as he was fairly sure he saw guts hanging out. One look in the strangers half-shut eyes and he knew he couldn’t spare him the additional pain.

Packet in his mouth he single-handedly ripped open the quickclot from his first aid kit and put his other hand over the man’s mouth. For a second he seemed to start struggling, but quickly lost the battle against his own body, tensing up.

“Sorry!”

Yuugi took a deep breath and squeezed the quickclot together with the guts back inside. The man screamed in agony for a short moment until pain finally took him out. Yuugi pushed the last bit of gauze inside the wound and taped a normal compress over it. Then he searched for other wounds, but apart from minor scratches he couldn’t find anything underneath the blood-clad clothing. Not that the stranger needed another wound to die.

With a sense of accomplishment Yuugi sat back on his heels. Had someone told him half a year ago that he would actually make use of a youtube-tutorial, he would have laughed at him. He certainly laughed now at the ridiculous notion.

But then reality began to sink in.

Yuugi was outside the town’s border, the slums just downhill, with a cold-out bleeding terrorist -not his grandfather- lying next to him. Surveillance was still out by the darkness of the town above. He knew nothing about that man because he had only said one word so far.

Holy SHIT!

Yuugi turned around so fast his neck cracked painfully. How dense was he to have missed it? That stranger had said only one word, yes, but that had been his grandfather’s name. Yuugi wasn’t the only one who mistook somebody for his grandfather. Realization dawned on him. It was possible, though highly unlikely, that the man was out to kill his grandfather. It was albeit much more possible that the wounded one was an ally or at least knew something about the whereabouts of Yuugi’s grandfather.

Either way he had already (maybe even successfully) saved the stranger’s life, he might as well trust his instincts one more time. Hopefully his luck wouldn’t run out on him in this gamble.

Refreshed by his newly found determination Yuugi strapped his backpack on. Inwardly he apologized to injured man again, but he had to carry him at least for a while to avoid leaving traces. Given the lack of his bodily strength that just couldn’t be very comfortable, even for a healthy person.

He rolled the unconscious body halfway towards him, took the upper arm and leg and dragged the limb figure over his shoulders. Achingly slow he willed his body to stand again, already feeling the beads of sweat forming on his forehead. This always looked so easy in the movies, but Yuugi was neither in a movie nor trained to do things like this. And why did his bangs decide that this was the perfect moment to fall into his face?

Abandoning all previous thoughts about returning to the town with the other one, he slowly made way towards the slums.

Night was crawling onto the sky at an alarming pace. After about half an hour of walking (which felt like half a day, thank you very much) Yuugi saw almost nothing of the grassy field surrounding him anymore. He halted, calming his heavy breathing. He pondered for a moment whether or not it was safe to leave the stranger here and get help fast or if he should pull through, trying to find a light in the distance. It shouldn’t be that far anymore. He decided to carry on.

The darkness around him became complete under the descending moon, but it wasn’t silent. His ragged breath and dragged step would alarm anyone of his presence. He really wasn’t surprised when he heard a revolver’s hammer being cocked.

“Stop right there!”

Yuugi did as the hushed voice commanded him.

“I’m not-“ he started. A red flashlight was pointed at his face, momentarily blinding him.

“Yuugi!” came the surprised hiss from his other side.

 

Yuugi flopped down on the run-down chair ungraciously, massaging his burning shoulders one side at a time. Ryuzaki took the chair opposite of him, pulled the gun from his back and started to disassemble it. Every part was neatly put on the table in front of him, then he took a well-used rug from his side-pocket and started to clean everything.

“I don’t even want to know.”

Ryuzaki looked up from his work, pausing momentarily and faced Yuugi with hardened eyes.

“Last thing I know is that you are living up in town and now you come strolling in here with that terrorist. A terrorist that had been attacked by the government already, they know where he is or better- where he should be. You left them a nice little trail to our camp, thank you!” He stood up and paced through the room, though returned to the table to continue cleaning, if only for a lack of better things to do. He sighed.

“You did a lot for us, back in the days and now with the fence kids. But you are not welcome here. You’ll have to leave at dusk. If your friend isn’t awake until then we’ll make him go.”

Yuugi hadn’t dared taking his eyes off Ryuzaki all the while. He gulped at the last statement. It was highly unlikely the man would be awake until then.

“I- … understand,” he concluded, letting his head drop. “Where is he now?”

Ryuzaki jerked his head to his left side.

“Haga,” Ryuzaki shuddered, as if remembering something unpleasant. “is taking care of him in the infirmary, down the road.” He put down the part he had been cleaning. “I’ll get you there.”

Together they went to the infirmary, and as they reached it Ryuzaki opened the door wordlessly and ushered Yuugi in with a look.

“Not a chance I’ll set foot into that madman’s cave while I’m awake!” he chuckled. Yuugi braced himself and went inside. The neatly lit room seemed to have been a hospital before, or a butcher’s shop, who really knew. The walls were tiled; a drain had been set in the floor and a metal table with his terrorist on top of it stood in the middle. Haga was working on him with his back to the door.

“You sick motherfucker!” the self proclaimed doctor cried in utter bliss, not noticing Yuugi approaching. He was clad in a formerly white coat that obviously had seen better, less bloody days, pulling out the quickclot with a ferocity nobody should show while having a nearly dead patient on his table.

“I’m half tempted to keep him here, you know?”

So he had noticed him after all. Yuugi crossed the room, preparing himself to see a corpse amidst a bloodbath. Taking the place opposite of Haga he was well surprised. The terrorist had been cleaned of his blood, a blanket covering his lower half. The gunshot wound actually didn’t seem that bad, now that Yuugi could see it in proper light.

“Amazing, isn’t it? I almost had to cut him up again to get the gauze out of him. Freaking mutant!”

“He’s-“ Yuugi gasped.

A creepy smile crept up on Haga’s face. “Yes, he’s modified, and heavily at that. Otherwise he would be dead, gauze or not. That shot ripped through more than just one layer of skin. A kidney for example.”

Yuugi looked at the terrorist’s wound as it was roughly stitched closed. Haga carefully cut off the end of the thread.

“Well, not my prettiest work, but you have to admit, it does stand out!” he chuckled, more to himself than to Yuugi as he put fresh gauze over the wound.

“Will he be alright?” Suddenly Yuugi’s voice was hoarse, feeling like the chance to find his grandfather slipped away.

Haga pulled the blanket over his patient and turned around, fumbling in a box on a lower shelf. He handed Yuugi three packs of gauze.

“Either he dies from sepsis tonight or you’ll be changing his bandages every twenty-four hours, as this is the most it should take him to heal.” His look was serious. Medical equipment was rare and valuable in the slums, so he added “Leave them here if he dies.”

“Thank you.” was the quiet answer.

Haga turned around and left his makeshift hospital, raising his left hand in salute. “Just make sure you are gone tomorrow when I return.”

The door shut close, and then Yuugi was alone with the sleeping terrorist. For a second he didn’t know what to do now, but after pondering about it shortly he went over to the pile of bloodied clothes on the counter. Guilt gnawed at his conscience as he went through the pockets of the trousers, searching for a hint of who the stranger was.

He found several itesms usable for survival. But what really stood out was network-diver. The little device lay heavily in his hand and Yuugi was tempted to connect his own to it. But then he remembered the electromagnetic pulse and groaned. Each of his devices was useless junk now. Disgruntled he left the clothing to dry on the shelf and packed the other belongings into his backpack.

Yuugi took one of the chairs from the side of the room and placed it near the operation table, taking a sit. He studied the sleeping face intently.

“Who are you?” he asked, obviously not receiving an answer.

 

He jerked awake to the sound of metal being slapped. The terrorist was awake and sitting, gripping his wounded side with one hand, the other hit the table repeatedly as to will the pain away. Yuugi stood up so fast his chair jerked backwards, reached out but stopped himself as the stranger turned towards him. Faster than he could see a hand had caught him around his throat in a death grip. He struggled instantly, screaming, trying to get the stranger to let go.

Crimson eyes full of fury glared at Yuugi.

Yuugi stopped moving and stared in disbelief. He would die here, just like that. Tears quelled from his eyes as he tried to breath. Panic arouse in his chest. He mouthed a word, frustrated at the lack of sound, but somehow the stranger had understood. His gaze flickered left and right as if to recognize the place for what it was and he slowly removed his fingers from Yuugi’s throat.

Yuugi took several steps back, coughed and his hands flew to his neck, tenderly touching the abused skin. Somehow he hadn’t been prepared to be greeted so hatefully.

“Sugoroku”, came the terrorist’s raspy voice. He cleared his throat and winced at the pain it induced in his battered body, quickly collecting himself again. “Where is Sugoroku?” If one listened closely enough he could hear a tint of desperation.

His voice equally sore he eyed the terrorist with caution. “He is my grandfather.” Hopefully that wouldn’t give too much away about his own identity, not that his system score would matter anymore by now. “What do you want from him?”

He spoke after several moments of evaluating whether to trust Yuugi or not with his intent.

“I need his help.”

Yuugi’s mouth oh-ed silently, as he started to understand. He collected himself and went over to the man’s clothing, ignoring the stare that followed him. Ripping the items from the shelf he returned to the table, holding them with a light smile forming around his lips. He told himself that it was okay, the other one was hurt and afraid, didn’t know where he was with a stranger sitting beside his sleeping form, everybody would react like that. Like a caged animal.

“He probably needs help as well”, Yuugi started, dearly whishing his voice wouldn’t sound so timid. “He has been gone for weeks and I haven’t heard anything from him since his departure. I thought maybe you know …” Fear of having lost his grandfather and the refusal to give up upon him battled for dominance in Yuugi’s gaze. It was the stranger’s turn to knowingly “Oh”. Yuugi was glad the stranger didn’t comment it any further.

“What happened? The last thing I remember is being hunted by a drone”, came the careful request for information.

“You were shot in the valley-” he began to explain. Startled by a sudden knock on the door from the outside, Yuugi went slightly pale.

“Can you stand up?” The stranger nodded. “Good. Because we aren’t necessarily welcome here.”

Yuugi strapped on his backpack again as the terrorist slowly got dressed, obviously in intense pain. He descended from the table and almost slumped over, groaning, grabbing the metal to not fall over, knuckles white. Yuugi ushered to his side, trying to help but not really daring to touch the stranger. After a few more labored breaths he let go and started to hesitantly walk and Yuugi followed suit.

In the faint morning glow Yuugi could take in the sight of the slums around him. He hadn’t seen it in person before, he just knew where it was located. Much to his surprise it wasn’t just made up from scrap metals or other junk, instead this must have been a tiny village before the war. Most of the small houses missed the upper story but none looked like they were about to collapse. Still it was a depressing sight. For people to be unjustly forced to live like that, just because their score wasn’t high enough made Yuugi extremely angry.

Nobody was around when the two intruders made their way along what could be called the main street. Obviously nobody wanted to take the chance to run into an angry terrorist. Silently Yuugi pondered about what to do and where to go now.

“It would be best to go up into the city”, the stranger murmured, as they left the slum’s border behind them. Turning towards Yuugi he added, “Don’t worry. I’m able to get you in with this!” A small proud grin made its way onto his face as he reached into his pocket. Then horror took its place. “Shit!”

“Ah, I got your stuff, I just didn’t want it to get soaked up in blood!” Yuugi exclaimed, halfway pulling his backpack to the front and opening it. He handed out the man’s items one by one, lastly the network-diver. “You probably searched for this”, he smiled, receiving a relieved ‘thank you’.

“By the way, my name is Yuugi”, he chirped. The stranger stared at him openly as if to determine his intent, then-

“I am Batman.” he said with a deep voice. Yuugi burst into laughter. The stranger smiled at the sound.

“My name is Atemu.”

With that they very slowly made their way uphill in silence, neither of them keen on spilling more secrets.

 

They reached the unmonitored area outside the fence in the early afternoon. Yuugi was glad he had been grocery shopping the day before as they were sweating profoundly and Atemu seemed to burn through every bit and piece of food he got into his system. But at least he didn’t limp as much as before, meaning he was on his way to get better.

They set up a makeshift camp beyond a small rock formation, agreeing on entering the city in the night, when security was evidently more lax. Atemu pulled out the diver from his pocket, getting it ready to break into town. He folded the little box like device apart, cringing at how much blood had seeped into the cracks. Creating somewhat glasses with light blue shades he put them on then and looked at Yuugi.

“As I said before, don’t worry about not having a score, I’ll create one for you so you can stay in the town.” Yuugi didn’t doubt it though he was amused by the arrogant announcement. One couldn’t be a terrorist in this world without being able to program at least marginally.

Atemu touched the diver at its right side. He sighed, smiled at Yuugi confidently and touched the side again, longer this time. Nothing happened.

Frustrated he ripped the diver from his face, inspecting it for damage, cursing all along. Several tries later it still decided to not work. He almost threw it away.

“Here, let me see.” Yuugi took the diver with soft force from Atemu’s hands. He turned it around and checked its weak joints where he knew the divers were prone to breaking. But nothing seemed out of the ordinary and normally they were completely water resistant, and the blood had long since dried.

“Maybe that pulse damaged its hardware?” he offered as an explanation.

“Impossible!” came the annoyed answer. Atemu held out his hand in a silent demand for his diver.

“But why? Even if your diver is shielded, being so close to a pulse could have probably-“

“It’s impossible because it wasn’t a pulse, ok?” Atemu interrupted him. “It was a flash sequence that sent a virus to all public systems in a certain perimeter. I added the light to make it seem like a pulse, but it most definitely wasn’t a pulse. So my diver is broken and we won’t get into the city, face it!” His shoulders fell in defeat.

Yuugi just started to grin, earning a confused look from Atemu.

“You mean it wasn’t a pulse? 100 percent flash-sequence? Then-“ Yuugi triumphantly exclaimed as he reached into his backpack and pulled out something much to Atemu’s surprise. “Don’t worry, I’m able to get you in with this! Oh, and don’t worry about your score, I’ll create you a new one!” In his hand he held his own diver with a shit-eating grin plastered right across his features.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quickclot actually exists and is used by the military, google it if you have a strong stomach :)


End file.
